stump off with your thirst still raging?’
There was a murmur from his cronies. His round, was it? I filled half a dozen glasses, some scrumpy, some bitter, passing them over in pairs.
As he took the last, he hissed, ‘You turn your nose up at good meat at my prices – you’re off your head, woman.’
‘I told you, Reg – I need paperwork for my accountant. You come up with the documentation: I might do business with you again. We’ll have to see, won’t we? After all, like it says on the board, this is an unrepeatable offer. Or did you leave your reading specs at home?’
‘Your fancy writing, that’s the problem. That and the fancy prices.’
‘He’s right,’ Fred Tregothnan, who’d just appeared, butted in. ‘You need to keep your prices down, if a man’s going to eat and pay his vet’s bills before Christmas! You’ll just have to get in the queue, Josie.’ His tone was jocular enough, but I fancied the message wasn’t. Reg’s farm never had paid well, according to the village , which is why he’d turned the flattest of his fields – coincidentally the one most prone to flooding - into the mobile home site. I didn’t know how campers rated such facilities, but I couldn ’t imagine Reg earning the equivalent of a Michelin star. His preferring the foetid old privy to the Portaloos didn’t augur well, did it?
Fred had his usual brandy and soda. It was unlike him to drop in in the middle of the day, still less like him to order food and sit on his own to eat it. He had the last of the organic steaks.
‘So is there any real difference,’ I asked as I took it to his table, one of the patio ones, ‘between organic meat and your bog standard commercial stuff?’
He shook his head. ‘Some folk even think ordinary husbandry ’s better for the animals, because they get more preventive medicine –’
‘As in antibiotics,’ I put in.
‘– and I’d be hard put to tell the difference between the two. But I can tell the difference between any meat and that frombeasts given Angel Dust –’
‘Angel Dust?’
‘It’s highly illegal, so you won’t be asking me to prove it with a blind tasting.’
‘Where did you have it?’
‘Over in the States. It’s a hormone-based growth accelerant, banned throughout Europe. They even have the sense to ban the US meat produced with it. It makes the animal grow very quickly, and to my mind gives nasty, spongy meat. Pap.’
‘But you won’t be top of the queue if I go completely organic.’
‘There are good organic farmers and bad organic farmers. A lot depends on the butcher, too – how long he hangs his meat, and in what temperature. Beef, now, it needs to go really dark, not this bright red stuff people like from their supermarkets.’
I didn’t point out I’d spent more years at college than I liked to recall learning about the colour of meat. Customers liked to think they know best. ‘These new suppliers said they knew every animal by name – oh, I know they were playing the sentimentality card – and had them slaughtered locally. At least they died happy.’
‘That’s a factor. The enormously long journeys the poor beasts make to slaughterhouses – they’re unforgivable. But that’s the government’s fault, all this bloody red tape they tie us around with.’
I nodded. I’d come across Compassion in World Farming during my travels on the Net.
By now he was well into his stride. ‘No wonder more and more vets are turning away from large animal practices and sticking to tabby cats and terriers. Which reminds me,’ he said, smiling ironically, ‘will you be serving the stirrup cup to the hunt this year?’
But at that point one of the walkers asked for his bill, and I didn’t quite hear Fred’s question. Accidentally on purpose. I still hadn’t made up my mind. But if Sue could refuse to bless them, I was that much closer to refusing to serve them. Why didn’t they do what other hunts did, gather at some big house? I
There was a murmur from his cronies. His round, was it? I filled half a dozen glasses, some scrumpy, some bitter, passing them over in pairs.
As he took the last, he hissed, ‘You turn your nose up at good meat at my prices – you’re off your head, woman.’
‘I told you, Reg – I need paperwork for my accountant. You come up with the documentation: I might do business with you again. We’ll have to see, won’t we? After all, like it says on the board, this is an unrepeatable offer. Or did you leave your reading specs at home?’
‘Your fancy writing, that’s the problem. That and the fancy prices.’
‘He’s right,’ Fred Tregothnan, who’d just appeared, butted in. ‘You need to keep your prices down, if a man’s going to eat and pay his vet’s bills before Christmas! You’ll just have to get in the queue, Josie.’ His tone was jocular enough, but I fancied the message wasn’t. Reg’s farm never had paid well, according to the village , which is why he’d turned the flattest of his fields – coincidentally the one most prone to flooding - into the mobile home site. I didn’t know how campers rated such facilities, but I couldn ’t imagine Reg earning the equivalent of a Michelin star. His preferring the foetid old privy to the Portaloos didn’t augur well, did it?
Fred had his usual brandy and soda. It was unlike him to drop in in the middle of the day, still less like him to order food and sit on his own to eat it. He had the last of the organic steaks.
‘So is there any real difference,’ I asked as I took it to his table, one of the patio ones, ‘between organic meat and your bog standard commercial stuff?’
He shook his head. ‘Some folk even think ordinary husbandry ’s better for the animals, because they get more preventive medicine –’
‘As in antibiotics,’ I put in.
‘– and I’d be hard put to tell the difference between the two. But I can tell the difference between any meat and that frombeasts given Angel Dust –’
‘Angel Dust?’
‘It’s highly illegal, so you won’t be asking me to prove it with a blind tasting.’
‘Where did you have it?’
‘Over in the States. It’s a hormone-based growth accelerant, banned throughout Europe. They even have the sense to ban the US meat produced with it. It makes the animal grow very quickly, and to my mind gives nasty, spongy meat. Pap.’
‘But you won’t be top of the queue if I go completely organic.’
‘There are good organic farmers and bad organic farmers. A lot depends on the butcher, too – how long he hangs his meat, and in what temperature. Beef, now, it needs to go really dark, not this bright red stuff people like from their supermarkets.’
I didn’t point out I’d spent more years at college than I liked to recall learning about the colour of meat. Customers liked to think they know best. ‘These new suppliers said they knew every animal by name – oh, I know they were playing the sentimentality card – and had them slaughtered locally. At least they died happy.’
‘That’s a factor. The enormously long journeys the poor beasts make to slaughterhouses – they’re unforgivable. But that’s the government’s fault, all this bloody red tape they tie us around with.’
I nodded. I’d come across Compassion in World Farming during my travels on the Net.
By now he was well into his stride. ‘No wonder more and more vets are turning away from large animal practices and sticking to tabby cats and terriers. Which reminds me,’ he said, smiling ironically, ‘will you be serving the stirrup cup to the hunt this year?’
But at that point one of the walkers asked for his bill, and I didn’t quite hear Fred’s question. Accidentally on purpose. I still hadn’t made up my mind. But if Sue could refuse to bless them, I was that much closer to refusing to serve them. Why didn’t they do what other hunts did, gather at some big house? I
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